


A Cool Empty Silence

by sian1359



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-21 01:00:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sian1359/pseuds/sian1359
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quiet moment in the snow</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cool Empty Silence

**Author's Note:**

> For Feelschat's 2012 Feelstide Holiday Fest. Prompt #60 -- Quiet moment in the snow.
> 
> Thanks once more to auburnnothenna for the last minute saves.
> 
> Title from Ultravox's song, Vienna

[ ](http://s926.photobucket.com/albums/ad105/sian1359/covers%20and%20frontispieces/?action=view&current=coolemptysilence.jpg)

 

 

 

Clint still wasn't sure why he and Phil had agreed to this. No, he knew _why._

During the last Avengers call out, he'd ended up participating as one of the ground fighters, tasked with helping protect and evacuate the civilians in the area. Because AIM, in their quest to get power and take over the world or whatever their deal was, was comprised mainly of humans, neither he nor Tasha were using their primary weaponry. 'Avengers don't kill humans', had been Captain America's rationalization, like neither he nor Tash could simply shoot without killing. Still, Clint had agreed to follow Cap's orders when working as an Avenger, and it wasn't as if SHIELD hadn't made their own bonehead calls a few times. He wasn't one to go crying or walk away when something didn't quite work out.

The trouble had come when the minion attempting to make off with the scientist who'd contacted SHIELD in the first place for protection turned out not to be human. That had been a hell of a time to find out AIM had their own version of Life Model Decoys, with theirs being more like a Terminator than a body double.  Clint had found this out when he'd charged the minion, his momentum taking both of them away from Dr. Haley, who at least had been able to use their confrontation, short though it had lasted, to get to safety.

Clint had recovered quicker from the impact and pivoted to deliver a Thai style side-angle kick against the minion's knee. Unfortunately, the T-100 reacted to that much faster than it had to Clint's surprise charge and had grabbed Clint's ankle, stopping his leg cold as if he'd been trying to take down a brick wall. Between it then twisting and Clint's own follow-up rotation from the attack, Clint's knee was the one to take the damage, in the form of a dislocated kneecap as well a torn ACL. The additional ankle fracture had really just been petty, an insult to the initial injury that should have been beyond an emotionless robot.

Of course, because the LMD had not been satisfied with putting Clint out of the fight but instead had bent over after letting him drop to do further injury, Clint had gotten it back. An arrow head through the eye worked just as well on a robot as it did a human in disrupting motor and cognitive functions.

Even so, Clint had, more or less, been taken out of the fight, able to do little but shoot a few arrows in warning when any of the other yellow-clad AIM minions turned his direction – and incidentally saving Captain America's life when his battle arena briefly spilled across Clint's field of vision and range, by putting one of his 'better left behind so there would be no temptation' arrows through the barrel of a shoulder mounted particle accelerator that even a super soldier would have been hard put to heal from had it been fired successfully. Clint used one of his two Stark-reimagined energy disruptor arrow tips, similar but more generic in its usage than the one Loki had designed for him take out the Helicarrier's electronics, shutting down the canon but leaving the minion intact for Captain America's brand of blunt force disruption.

While the wait had seemed like forever, due to the pain from his messed up leg as well as his frustration in not only not being able to do more to end the fighting but also from causing SHEILD to redirect some of their resources to aid him instead of the civilians, the reality had been no more than ten or fifteen minutes before he'd been gathered up and removed from the field to the relative safety of the local SHIELD command post. Or, he'd assumed that was where he'd been evacuated; he'd actually passed out from some injudicious jostling through a rubble field by the pair of junior agents that had been tasked to his side and he hadn't woken until after, apparently, two sets of surgeries.

He was now off his feet for ten mandatory weeks and had further weeks of rehab after to look forward to. Because of that prognosis, Tony had offered the use of one of his multiple residences once Clint could transition from a wheelchair to crutches, as being in the Tower with the rest of the Avengers was not conducive to him obeying doctor's orders at the best of times, but especially when the team got called out again and Clint needed be left behind. The thinking had been if he didn't know about the call in real time, he wouldn't make his own way to SHIELD Central or the local Field Command – _couldn't_ make his way thusly if he was no longer in proximity.

That Phil had agreed with the suggestion had come as no surprise; he more than even Natasha understood how difficult it was for Clint to be completely off duty, whether for injury, disciplinary action, or simply on vacation; the only time it worked even remotely was when Clint was remote.  Not quite no cell phones or mass media remote, but there were times his phone number and email address were placed on temporary bounce throughout the entirety of SHIELD's numerous locations and personnel unless a code word was offered.

That Phil had agreed to come _with_ Clint had been both unexpected and gratifying. Nick Fury was indeed the hard-ass bastard everyone assumed him to be from his public demeanor and attitude and Phil was indeed Fury's 'one good eye' that he was loath to not have on call, but Fury was also a realist and knew that downtime was essential for mental health as well as maintaining physical well-being. Phil's own encounter with Loki was no so long ago that he still didn't have the occasional twinge or nightmare, nor was his and Clint newly evolved relationship yet past the honeymoon phase—not that Clint thought they'd ever completely fall out of the honeymoon phase – so Phil felt a need to be on hand during the initial stages of Clint's recuperation.

Phil picking the resort of Sun Valley from the list of Tony's eight more remote retreats had been the other surprise to this whole thing. Given the winter they'd been having in New York, going someplace with even more snow was the last thing Clint had expected, Tony's assurance that Errol Flynn had loved it there notwithstanding. It certainly wasn't as if Clint was going to be able to ski, and so far Phil had shown no interest in doing so himself, though Clint wasn't sure if that was from not enjoying skiing or from not wanting to abandon Clint.

He had to admit that it was pretty up here, however, and that Tony's penchant for floor to ceiling windows matched quite well with the warm natural materials comprising his 'cabin'. The view out those windows was spectacular, all mountains and nestled valleys that showed little evidence that anyone else lived nearby. Given that there were less than 1,500 permanent residents who called Sun Valley home, that most of the tourists stayed in the cluster of hotels and chalets near the ski resort, and that the other rich and famous who owned seasonal property valued their privacy almost as much as Stark did, the sense of solitude was understandable and just about perfect; enough of a nearby town and population to not feel isolated or bereft, but also secluded enough that when they didn't want to be social, it wasn't expected or even encouraged.

Chateau de Stark was also surprisingly intimate for a Stark property; under ten thousand square feet and only three stories along with a mezzanine loft opening over half of the almost two thousand square foot great room that combined a living, family, and dining room. The massive windows encircled two thirds of the great room's perimeter and nearly a quarter of it jutted out over air, similar to the design of Tony's Malibu property, though without the futuristic, sweeping saucer-like rooflines.  The entire lower floor held only the master bedroom and Tony's ubiquitous lab, along with the multi-car garage and what turned out to be an office for Tony's driver, Happy Hogan, not that Clint or Phil had done anything more than give them a once over for security purposes upon their arrival. The mid-level, in addition to the great room and kitchen, held another office that looked like it had never been used, and two of the nine bedrooms.  

They'd claimed one of those after Happy had intimated any were available except for the master bedroom; even though there was an elevator installed to travel between the three and a half floors, the shorter distances Clint needed to walk the better. Still, he'd picked the one along the Cliffside, with its own twelve foot windows, not the one tucked off the office and buried under hundreds of feet of mountaintop. Bedding and other linens, along with a wide-assortment of toiletries, food and entertainment options had been freshened, picked up and laid in before their arrival, each of the bedrooms prepped, as the rest of the team and friends planned to join Clint and Phil in a few days so they could all celebrate the general Christmas spirit no matter their religions or inclinations, together.

Happy had flown out with them in one of Tony's private jets, to act as driver and tour guide as needed, as well as to oversee the preparations for everyone else's arrival and, no doubt, whatever party plans Tony had cooked up since no one believed he could contain himself to a simple gathering. Tony's driver and bodyguard had made himself as scarce yet as available as they could want, and had also turned out to be a daring and imaginative cook. A good thing, since Phil's cooking skills primarily involved him calling for take-out and Clint was in no shape to put his own skills to use.

Their most recent meal had been dinner; a meal of gourmet left-overs finished a couple of hours ago. Happy had left shortly after lunch; it turned out he was the big skier. Clint had been glad for the privacy during the afternoon, although Happy had proven to be as entertaining as he was discreet.  This morning Clint had finally gotten the okay to move onto the next step of PT exercises for his knee, which had proven to be an even bigger bitch thanks to the heavy ankle cast than previous, similar rehabs.  To say he'd been cranky as well as disappointed in himself for his reaction… well, the one saving grace had been having one less witness to his minor meltdown. Phil had assured him that Happy had seen much worse on a regular basis working for Tony for so many years, but still.  

After a childhood of getting hurt worse when he whined or complained, Clint was more bear than baby when it came to nursing his wounds. Getting angry and pushing people away usually worked and even after he'd been recruited by SHIELD, there hadn't been that many people he'd worried about alienating. Although he'd eventually come to care enough about a few of his co-workers to not want to alienate them, he'd also come to discover those few were not the type to become alienated, not even when Clint was being a brat. Phil and Natasha had both proven remarkably resilient in the face of Clint's distancing techniques, with Natasha simply becoming a funhouse mirror, mimicking and exaggerating his bad behavior until Clint had to laugh at her –and at himself.  

As for Phil, it had been for better or worse between them long before their relationship had grown into this stage, when witnesses and rings could become involved, were they so inclined. They'd seen each other at their very worst; in the throe of icy fury, hot humiliation, or stricken in spirit as well as body too many times to count—as both the victim/recipient and the cause. If Loki couldn't break them, singularly or together, Clint yelling until Phil simply left him alone to pout wasn't going to be the final straw.

Nor had it. Phil had abandoned Clint to sit on the floor to get over himself – or crawl out of the room since his crutches were too far away to reach – for no more than ten minutes, though Clint suspected it was less. He'd brought back a bottle of water, a damp cloth as well as a warmed, drying towel, and a pair of newly licensed Captain America Band-Aids to put over the scratches on the back of his hand that Clint had gained from when he'd flailed upon falling out of a simple half squat on his first attempt. He hadn't needed the Band-Aids, of course, but they, as well as the rest of the paraphernalia Phil had brought back had been welcome, as had Phil's fussing. As had been the deep tissue massage Phil had offered once they'd gotten Clint cleaned up and back into the bedroom. 

From there, Clint had fallen asleep for an hour or so, Happy's call to tell them he was going to stay for a little night skiing if they didn't need him waking him in time so he could sit with Phil while he explored their dining options and put together a green salad to go with the last of the grilled eggplant, lobster and crab lasagna. They traded their weirdest food-combinations-that-worked stories afterward as Phil cleaned up, which had led, since there was no one else around, to a few more, uncensored stories involving separate missions that somehow they'd never exchanged before. Fun and relaxing and damn near perfect, right up until it was time for Phil's daily retreat to the unused office to review new SHIELD reports, along with his compromise call to Fury for any needed sitrep or debriefing.

Clint had tried to do his own reading during the last couple of hours, but he kept getting distracted by his body's discomfort from his forced inactivity, and maybe from the pain. He'd already stopped taking his prescribed meds except for the antibiotics and half a Vicodin plus a muscle relaxer just before bed so he could actually stay asleep.

As a kid, meds as well as doctor visits had been emergency services only, something that hadn't really changed at the orphanage or in the circus. So he didn't always have a standard reaction when he took drugs now. Typical NSAIDs often made him feel loopy and sleepy—even the topical ones, while heavy duty narcotics were off the table as far as he was concerned. Morphine, Oxy, everything stronger involved longer-term hospital stays, which was also a no-go when Clint had a choice. He preferred living with the pain over going through withdrawals once more.

After shifting for at least the fifth time, Clint carefully placed the book aside and grabbed for one of his crutches. An hour of PT, especially failed PT, was not enough movement. And while the windows were nice – were great, actually – he needed fresh air. Even if the air outside had fallen to single digits.

Between being been born in Iowa and more or less living in New York City for the last fifteen years, Clint was no stranger to cold weather and snow. Not even the kind of cold that gripped Idaho and pretty much didn't let go for the three winter months.

As he hobbled toward the enclosed porch that was both foyer and mud room, Clint remembered liking snow when he'd been little. Snow in Iowa had meant mittens and hats and making snow angels. He had vague snapshot memories of flying on the back of a sled and sucking on ice sickles, of cold noses, hot chocolate and warm cuddles with none of the yelling or pain that otherwise colored his memories of that time. His time with Barney once they'd been sent to the orphanage weren't quite so vague – or quite so fun —but winters then still had their moments. Sure, the big kids had been merciless in the pummeling of the little ones with snow balls when they hadn't just throw you into a drift, but even then Clint's aim had been true enough that Barney had mostly kept him close by to fight on his side. Since it was always too cold inside from lack of donations to run the heater high enough, or too hot from so many boys crammed together in the same room – if you didn't mind snow and snuck off outside, you were generally left alone. Clint had perfected his ability to find good hiding places at St. Augustine's.

During the circus years, falling snow meant finding a place to hunker down and wait out the winter. Sometimes, they'd stopped in the warmer, southern states, but not all that often. Prices were always higher in the South than in similar resting places gripped in the cold. Winter break was more for the animals than the people anyway, with everyone still putting in their time tending to them as well as repairing or mending broken down trailers, tents, costumes, and all of the other little damages that accumulated over the course of a year on the road.  Being a 'star' hadn't gotten Clint out of his turn at the chores and his training _never_ let up, but there had still been a kind of peace and camaraderie during the winter months, especially when snow blanketed the field they'd been able to park in and everyone only had each other to rely on.

After he'd fled the circus and lived as best he could day to day, snow had been just one more enemy, and it had taken him years to again find some peace in it; until after his stint as a Marine and his days as a merc, even taking him a couple of years after joining SHIELD. Snow in cities was generally dirty and dreary, while snow during an op in the field was too often one more negative factor to be overcome. He'd spent days trapped or simply enduring the snow in the mountains of Afghanistan, China and Japan, on rooftops as well as in makeshift safe houses in Russia and other old Soviet bloc countries, a long week without a hospital in Brazil, and one memorable overnight stuck at an local airport in Johannesburg.  It wasn't until he'd been needed in New Zealand, for an op that had him trailing a mark through the Canterbury Plains at the base of the Southern Alps that he'd rediscovered the comfort and  beauty of snow, finding the snow a place to escape to, not from.

In some ways, the mountains now around him reminded him of those he'd looked down upon from his refuge in the Craigieburn Range, with their own quiet majesty and timeless presence. A sky so clear that during daylight hours he felt like he could see forever, and in the night he need only reach up and he could touch a star. To have that sense of it all, even from behind the glass of windows… Clint could only _burn_ from the forced separation. He had to get out, crutches be damned.

It took all of his flexibility and impressive, or so even Tasha had once commented, balance to shrug on hoodie, parka, hat, gloves and the rubber booty that Phil had found to fit over his socked foot and cast while supporting himself on one crutch. To have to return to the interior of the building to find a chair to make it all easier seemed a cheat as well as a concession that for the foreseeable future, he couldn't handle any of the things that had never troubled him before. He knew it was stupid, reckless even, since he could have fallen and further hurt himself, but he hadn't. The sense of accomplishment he gained for not having to take the easy way didn't hurt either.

Feeling useless was the worst part of medical leave as, in his case, he couldn't even take on an analyst's job while he was barred from the field, not unless he got someone to read the reports to him, so pretty much negating his extra pair of eyes.  Oh, he could read well enough to get by with most things, but it wasn't something he enjoyed all that much. Even something like the fiction he'd tried to distract himself with earlier was often a chore; the struggle to read through SHIELD observational filings to find patterns and make predictions on future behavior too often caused him to miss the nuances amidst the minutia of details and kept his analysis from being effective.  He was much better at reading the patterns of the living world, not within words.

The living world before him right now told him a story of agelessness and purity, of how it would endure and survive long after mankind destroyed itself. Ozone holes and climate change might leave it a different world, harsher, crueler, but Clint had no doubt it would be starkly beautiful in its own right.  He drew in a great lungful of the untainted air, unmindful of how it chilled him right down to his bones and made his teeth ache. Better such aches from something so perfect than because of folly or hubris.

The front door to Stark's Idaho mountain chateau opened onto a flat, graded expanse that encompassed the end of the road leading up to it as well as something of a lawn, though both now were hidden and blended by the several inches of snow that had fallen yesterday. As a rule, Happy drove only as far as the lower portion of the home, pulling directly into the garage and using the entrance from within it for entry into the living areas. He'd driven Clint and Phil up here, to the front door on their first day, both to make it easier on Clint for the shortened walk as well as to introduce them to the surroundings. No sign of their arrival remained, however, the only tracks and shadows in the snowfield coming from local animals and as a result of the wind that had greeted them at today's sunrise.

Clint didn't doubt that Stark had had trees and other bits of nature cleared away, both as a firebreak and for an outdoor area to entertain upon. Now, though, it was simply a rectangle of unbroken white, running roughly a hundred and fifty feet to the tree line and along the full three thousand feet length of this side of the chateau, plus another twenty or thirty feet of spillover beyond the home's footprint. 

A few, warm lights spilled through the curtains behind him, more as a beacon and reminder of what good was held within than to aid In illumination, but that coupled with the rising moon and a multitude of stars, Clint had no trouble making his way. The snow itself fairly glowed. Still, he used his dominant crutch like a hiking stick, nudging it forward to test the ground for roots, depressions or holes that the snow could have glossed over.  A few feet away from the house, he turned left, heading toward the edge of the property, the edge of the mountain, not that he intended to go the full distance. He wasn't sure he could make it after his near two weeks of being bed or at least couch ridden, nor could he rely on his balance or flexibility to prevent a disaster if the edge proved  unstable under the snow blanket.

A thousand feet was far enough to have him feeling winded. It also gave him a view that rivaled that from behind the glass, a lookout over a twinkling valley that looked like the interior of one of Natasha's snow globes. It presented a pretty reminder of people, enough for Clint to know he wasn't totally isolated and alone, but still far enough away not to intrude.

Frankly the stars looked closer, the moon larger.

Clint wasn't sure how long he simply stood there and took it all in. Nor did he care.

"There was a guy, one of the Marines in my unit, that used to stand out under skies like this for hours," he said softly, not in a whisper but because he didn't need speak any louder in the hush and utter stillness that had been enhanced by Phil's quiet footfalls, not disturbed.

"He said he was looking for god. None of us were sure if he was being ironic; we were in Kuwait at that point, just a few weeks before we'd be deployed into Somalia, and there were a lot of guys looking for or praying to god there.  He did say it made him feel humble, small, like whatever he'd be called upon to do wouldn't really matter in the face of infinity." Major Stockwell had also died a day before they'd shipped on to Mogadishu, so it a way he'd gotten his wish or at least had been right about not affecting what had come after.

"I may not believe in god, but there is something spiritual about the sky at night." Clint would have gestured, but it would look stupid with a crutch, and he knew that Phil was just as awed; some of their best time in New Mexico on the Thor mission had been spent lying back on sleeping bags and just looking at the overwhelming number of stars.  "It is humbling, too, like Stockwell said, but I don't feel insignificant. Under stars and even galaxies numbering further than we can count, there is me. Clint Barton. Something unique in all of creation. Standing next to someone just as special. That along is a concept too big to even contemplate, but when you add in us meeting..." Clint couldn't continue, wasn't sure what he was trying to say, only knowing he would never have the words.

But it was Phil, so he didn't need the words or an articulate thought. Phil, who along with Natasha, knew him better than anyone and who understood the parts of Clint that Natasha never would thanks to her own lack of a normal upbringing and childhood.

"You are definitely unique, and never insignificant," Phil agreed as he came up directly behind Clint, putting his chest to Clint's back. One of his arms curved around Clint's waist while the other very carefully eased the crutch away from Clint's left hand and replaced it with a commuter cup filled with apple cider by the smell.

"Even if you had stayed in Iowa, had never left and become The World's Greatest Marksman, or worked for SHIELD, or now stood as an Avenger, Clint Barton would matter. I am very glad that you did do all those things, however, as they are what brought me to you. Even if I like to think we would have found one another in any universe. I cannot even imagine what my life would be like without Clint Barton in it."

Feeling overwhelmed, Clint quipped, "it would be less stressful, I imagine. Less chaotic." He knew that Phil loved him, could even admit that, yes, he had made a wider difference in the world than just for his circle of friends and acquaintances, but it was still disconcerting to be told those things. Especially by someone the same could be said of – or even more so.

"Less joyful, certainly," Phil countered. He spoke now from next to Clint's neck, neither of them having their hoods raised so Phil's cheek rubbed against his in a hot blaze that he was grateful to lean into even though he really hadn't noticed the cold after the initial shock.

"I don't see myself being here, staying in the home of the one of the world's richest men and contemplating the nature of and my place in the universe," Phil continued, keeping them together, intimate despite the multiple layers of clothing between them. "And I do like this place, I must say. I like the opportunity of you being in my arms."

Clint turned enough that he could kiss Phil's jaw.  "I'm pretty comfortable here myself. And grateful as well. Not just in having you here with me while I convalesce, but that you can even be here."

"Well, Nick did owe me – "

"Not that. Well, not only that." With great care, Clint turned himself around so that he and Phil stood face to face. "You died, Phil, and the universe became a much lonelier, darker place for the time I knew that as truth. I like this one a whole lot better."

Phil nodded and met him halfway. They kissed, but it was more than that, was affection and acceptance, apology and absolution, a celebration of survival as well as love because they both had and they both did.

The stars wheeled overhead.

— Finis —

 

 

 


End file.
